No Static At All

It's the night after the Tuesday Night Surprise from Massachusetts.

Doggone it, I always liked Tuesday when it was Taco Night.

This time, it was the Democrats getting shelled. ¡Ay Caramba!

But again, here I sit, the night after the votes came in and changed the alignment of chairs in Congress. And I'm not going to take sides, point the finger, make judgements or lay the blame. Massachusetts had to choose between two people to replace the great late Senator Edward Moore Kennedy. On the red side, they had a handsome state senator who once posed for Cosmopolitan, who offered to hook his daughters up on the podium while making his victory speech, who offers pro-choice, pro-Second Amendment, strong defense and anti-health care reform as his planks. The Blues trotted out their state attorney general who did not know which team Red Sox hero Curt Schilling played for, a woman who took a long vacation in the middle of a campaign that her party desperately needed to win. A woman who admitted that she didn't really care for running for office.

Not exactly the menu that the founding fathers planned to offer, is it?

But I'm listening to NPR - a radio show called "On Point." Fascinating concept for a political discussion: they have informed people, from both sides of the political divide, speaking in historical perspective, lacing their talk with facts and reasonable opinion and prognostication. No one is calling anyone else a communist, a fascist, an idiot, unpatriotic, or stupid. I mean, just off the top of their heads, the panel discussed the first year of the Obama Administration vis-a-vis the first years for Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. It's informative and compelling.

And then again, the other day on one of the local AM blowtorches, I heard a discussion of the health care matter in which the host and a caller hollered over each other for a couple of minutes. It became possible, at length, to discern that both of these well-read Americans were on the same side of the matter, and could not chance having the other person seem to be more against the president than they. Hence the hollering. The entire matter, at last, was summed up with great celerity and perspicacity by the caller, who stated, in a voice coarsened by years of hollering, "It's all a bunch of bullcrap!"

Hear well his words and pay heed. Then go listen to NPR and learn something.